Driving the overall drops were the number of bus trips. Both DART and DCTA saw their respective rail ridership increase. DART’s went up 1.39 percent while DCTA saw a 23.04-percent increase in train trips.

DART this year will reach a watershed moment when it connects its light rail system directly into D/FW International Airport. But take a look at how regional leaders — and voters – envisioned the system to look by now. The map above is the service plan the agency and North Texas hoped to have in place by 2013. It’s not quite the system DART has today, though you can see how plans of 1983 laid the ground work for what currently exists.

The reality of multiple recessions, politics, changing leadership and a battle against Dallas’ car-centric culture combined to make the reality different than the original plan. But it’s fascinating to see what was envisioned more than 30 years ago. So what would North Texas rail look like if DART’s original plan came to fruition?

You’d be able to access the airport from the north and south because a line would also tie directly into D/FW from the TRE.

Four lines would serve the South Dallas region.

An east-west connector could take you from western Oak Cliff through Downtown Dallas to Mesquite.

Another east-west connector on the north side of the system would connect what’s now the Green Line in Carrolltonto the Red Line in Plano.

Irving would have a line that connected its old downtown area to the Las Colinas area – with another tie-in to the Green Line.

A major deterrent for relying on rail in North Texas is that the system doesn’t connect enough places to be able to ditch cars completely, or even substantially. If the current system looked like the vision above, would you be more likely to ride?

DART and airport officials say there are no plans to eliminate the DFW Shuttle, which connects the TRE’s CentrePort Station to the airport’s South Remote Terminal. From that parking lot, you can catch buses that take you directly to each of the airport’s terminals. The shuttle runs every 15 minutes Monday through Saturday.

According to DART spokesman Morgan Lyons, the shuttle is more popular than Route 500 which currently connects CentrePoint to Terminal A and the Orange Line‘s Belt Line Station on the north side of the airport. DART is changing Route 500 from an airport route once the Orange Line ties directly into Terminal A later this year. The Orange Line will be the area’s first light-rail line that connects directly to an airport terminal.

According to Texas Department of Transportation spokesperson Michelle Releford, westbound Interstate 30 over the Trinity River is being closed as crews working on the Horseshoe Project attempt to sand an increasingly treacherous roadway. Drives are asked to take alternate routes.

And according to the Dallas Police Department, the north- and southbound Interstate 35 ramps to Interstate 20 will close at 5 p.m. until further notice. So will all the High Five ramps — in “all directions,” according to Chief Vernon Hale. Northbound Stemmons to eastbound LBJ and northbound Walton Walker at Singleton was also be closed. Northbound Interstate 45 at Bryan Street is also closing.

“Our trucks were already en route to the High Five,” says Releford.

And Sigalert shows that Interstate 30 between Dolphin Road and Riverfront Boulevard is closed “due to icy conditions.” We are attempting to confirm with Texas Department of Transportation, which doesn’t show that to be closed.

TRAINS:

The entire DART light rail system is still down, though they are trying to remove ice from the lines that provide trains with power.

“Trains were stalling due to the ice on the overhead wires,” said agency spokesman Mark Ball. “The decision was made to connect all the stations with buses immediately.”

Service cuts to the suburbs mounted overnight. By early this morning, only the stations in and closest to downtown were open. Then the entire system went dark. Until ice starts melting, things will stay where they are.

DCTA is seeing delays on the A-Train line, but that is up and running.

The TRE meanwhile, is operating, but is running at about 30-60 minutes behind schedule. The T expects buses to be running on all major routes by about 11 a.m.

BUSES:

DART buses are running, but the agency warns to expect delays and to dress accordingly. The same poor road conditions affecting other drivers affect buses. The only bus routes cancelled so far are for the routes that provide service to Brookhaven College and University of Texas at Dallas. Buses will actually operate a regular schedule on Saturday. DART is ditching the route changes that had to be made in anticipation of the Children’s Medical Center parade that has been cancelled. DCTA Connect buses, aren’t though, due to road conditions in the county, which the winter storm hit pretty hard.

DART patrons who don't live within the agency's 13 member cities pay $2 a day to park at Parker Road Station on the Red Line.

Dallas Area Rapid Transit is poised to stop charging people who don’t live in its member cities for parking at light-rail stations. The agency’s revenue committee unanimously approved the move Tuesday afternoon.

The agency still plans to give preferential parking at Plano’s Parker Road Station to people who live within its service area. If the full board approves the move next month, changes won’t take effect until April.

DART began charging for parking at some light-rail stations last year in part to dissuade people who live outside the agency’s service area from taking station parking spots from people who live inside the service area.

But the agency also hoped to make money off of what’s called the “fair share” parking program. Instead, the vendor operating the program has yet to break even and DART has yet to earn a penny.

“We thought we could make some money,” said board member Randall Chrisman, who chairs the revenue committee.

Parker Road Station, which is the northern-most stop on the Red and Orange lines, became the poster child of stations used by scores of people who don’t live in a member city. While Plano pays into DART, northern neighbors like Allen and McKinney do not. Yet residents of those Collin County cities still use the train to commute south to jobs in Dallas County.

DART planning and development vice president Todd Plesko said Tuesday the agency could earn revenue off the program in the future.

“But it would be relatively small,” he said.

Plesko said the addition of paid parking didn’t affect ridership at stations. He said many people from outside the service area now drive past the paid lots and get on the train one or two stops down. That has caused overflow at the Green Line’s Trinity Mills Station. The Red Line’s Bush Turnpike Station is typically at about 90 percent capacity.

Plesko said the change will likely decrease cars at down-line stations and increase them again at end-stations. He said the station’s lots should be able to handle the changes.

The full DART board is expected to discuss the plan next week. A vote is scheduled for Dec. 10.

Members of this newspaper’s editorial board have interviewed candidates for mayor in six suburban races, and some of them offer interesting (to me) glimpses at attitudes about DART service. Here’s a rundown:

– In Plano, some of the natives have been restless about whether the penny sales tax is worth it for the bedroom community. But neither candidate for mayor would go there. I asked if either would back a pullout election, which DART critics in Plano have clamored for occasionally. Harry LaRosiliere and Fred Moses both said DART is an important asset to Plano. Period.

– Both of Richardson‘s mayoral candidates, Laura Maczka and Amir Omar, said the city needs to work hard to take advantage of transit-oriented development opportunities. Some of our conversation centered on the Spring Valley light-rail station and the adjacent Brick Row development. Both candidates said the town homes there are starting to move, following a slow period for sales. To me, it appears that the retail portion of Brick Row is a disappointment, like what appears to happen at other TOD sites. Maczka said expectations were probably too high initially for retail at Brick Row; as opposed to high-end stores, she said, the reality will turn out to be dry cleaners and the like. Omar said businesses there need to market themselves better (something that, to me, is easier said than done for a challenging location). Richardson is a four-stop town on DART light rail. Both candidates are supporters. The tougher challenge for Richardson, to me, is the traffic that will be generated by the $1.5 billion TOD project adjacent to the Bush station. Good luck with that. God help the motorists already stuck in traffic at 75 and Bush.

– Arlington‘s Mayor Robert Cluck has a cake walk to his sixth term over Jerry Pikulinski and Chris Dobson. Since only his views matter in this race, I won’t mention the other two’s. Cluck wants to get contract bus shuttle service started through DART and put the city on the path to DART membership. Sen. John Carona has a bill in the Senate letting DART expand into Tarrant County. I asked Cluck whether DART’s new policy insisting on the full penny tax was a barrier to Arlington. He corrected me — twice — that the policy says one cent or “equivalent.” Cluck wants DART and wants to take the question to voters. He wants to get the city out of the category of largest city in the U.S. without mass transit.

– Grand Prairie is a challenge for DART. On the map, it’s a gateway to Arlington, but it looks like the next mayor is content with its being a pass-through city to Arlington, as far as DART is concerned. This goes back to the matter of DART raising the stakes for membership from the possibility of a half cent for limited contract service to a full cent (or equivalent) or forget it. Neither GP mayoral candidate, Mark Hepworth or Ron Jensen, is willing to pay that full freight. Grand Prairie has a complicated array of sales-tax increments now dedicated to different programs and debts, and neither candidate seems interested in freeing up enough of it to pay into DART. Jensen said Grand Prairie residents just aren’t interested in mass transit, save, perhaps a shuttle to get park-and-riders to DFW Airport. Hepworth disagreed, saying there’s an appetite for buses AND rail in GP, though he said the city could probably muster up only a half cent for it. Since that doesn’t buy into DART, Hepworth said he’d work with other cities to go it alone, outside of the DART system. Hmmm. He said he’d have a goal of a north-south light-rail spur to DFW Airport. That’s a “ludicrous” idea, given the cost of light rail, Jensen said. I agree.

Footnote: John Monaco, mayor of Mesquite, didn’t come in to sit for an interview alongside his opponent, Don Hill. Garland‘s candidates — Larry Jeffus, Harry Hickey, Dolores Elder-Jones and Douglas Athas — did come in, but I wasn’t in that interview to pester them about DART. No one took up the slack and asked DART questions for me (not that I’m harboring grudges). Garland doesn’t have burning DART issues, I don’t think, outside of keeping alleged “freeloaders” like Mesquite from getting bargain contract service indefinitely. Now that the new membership policy is in place, and Mesquite will have to pay big or forget about DART, the natives in Garland probably have simmered down.

Paid parking should spread to even more DART lots, the agency’s planning committee recommends, according to spokesman Morgan Lyons.

You could see this coming. The plot, and pilot, thickens.

As updated by Robert Wilonsky this week, the money from DART’s experiment in charging non-residents for parking has not been bringing in enough to make it profitable for the vendor. Chalk part of that up to start-up costs; chalk the rest of it up to pain in the pocketbook for commuters who just won’t pay.

So what committee members decided — in a split decision — was to recommend chasing the customers who flee the charges in the northernmost lots on the Red, Green and Orange lines and add two more lots, one on the Red and one on the Green.

Our editorial board has been dogging the agency on this one from the beginning. See, DART has to contend with two know-it-alls on the subject: yours truly, a veteran Red Line rider, and Mike Hashimoto, of Green Line fame. Odds being what they are, we turn out to be right some of the time, and on this one it looks like we could be. So far.

We fancy ourselves pretty attuned to the price tolerance of DART riders and the overall tolerance of government reaching farther into our wallets. I went to one DART meeting on the subject a couple of years ago and got an earful from non-residents. Some argued that DART is not funded by just taxpayers in the 13 cities. Non-residents come in and pay the sales tax, too, they said, and everyone helps pay federal taxes that went a long way toward building the blasted rail network.

Even so, it looks like DART wants a southward spread of paid parking for non-residents to the Bush lots on the Red and to Trinity Mills on the Green.

Well, I commute from both the Bush and Arapaho stations, and it’s clear to many riders that Arapaho is just a couple of miles down the road. You could drive there faster than train there. And Arapaho’s lot offers acres and acres of unused concrete (see photo at right, which I took last year). It’s so lightly used that you could have a bus Road-E-O there, which is exactly what DART has done, from time to time.

There’s one other reaction that DART riders have. If southbound commuters make it to a certain point in their cars, they say, “Shoot, I may as well drive all the way in.” You can see that in the half-empty park-n-rides, from Arapaho on down.

DART does a lot of things for us commuters, but it doesn’t save us bunches of time. Driving for many of us is quicker, but it’s not our choice. It takes me about 40 minutes from platform to the door of my office. Yesterday, I missed my connecting bus in Richardson and took a 20-minute walk to the train station. Then came the 40 minutes on board. I didn’t mind the hour commute, because there’s reading, calling and writing I can do. But that’s not usable time for everybody.

For lots of drivers, if the parking charges chase them farther toward work, they are going to chuck the whole idea of DART and just motor all the way in. DART should not irritate these people, if they want to keep them as customers.

Bottom line for me is that I’m a DART fan and wonder why it’s not able to attract more people to public transit, especially all those I see jamming onto North Central Expressway heading into downtown every day. What a living hell that would be. (There’s an idea for a marketing campaign — “Ride DART and avoid the living hell of Dallas freeways.”)

Chasing away customers with a tenuous money-grubbing pay-to-park idea isn’t the way to convert more people to public transportation.

Post script: The vote in committee to recommend expanding the parking pilot, from spokesman Mark Ball:

My friend and DART board member Mark Enoch read my blog post of yesterday on DART’s new policy on membership, and he called to differ on a few things. I invited him to do the smart thing and put it in writing, so we could add it to the record here in his words, not mine.

This, now, from Mark Enoch:

Having read your blog posting of March 6, I wanted to respond to you and further explain the benefits of the full penny dedicated to transit.

While certainly it may seem logical at first to assume that cities will want to pay less than a penny tax to build rail, that assumption ignores the all-important value of time. When rail can be built is just as important as where it will be built.

I believe that the primary reason that the DART board voted to continue its previous policy encouraging full participation is that DART’s financial model has proven itself uniquely successful by financing the construction of the longest light rail system in the country.

Clearly the light rail system and the transit oriented development around many of our stations have been a great benefit to our patrons and our service area cities. DART has been uniquely successful in doing this because of its financial ability to do so. A full penny of local sales taxes is invested by each of the service area cities. That revenue stream is inflation protected because as retail prices go up, so do DART’s sales tax collections dedicated to it by these cities.

Thus, as DART’s operating and construction expenses rise, so do the revenues that enable us to build more lines and to maintain quality and safety. So, while it might seem logical that a city would want to spend less than a penny for DART rail, when the revenues from that lesser source are considered, the construction of that rail line is greatly delayed. That delay relates directly to the amount of money that a city might otherwise ‘save’ by spending less than a penny.

Some might point to the quick success that the Denton County Transportation Authority had in opening its rail system within the first 8 years of its life. Because DCTA only receives one half of a cent and built its line in only 8 years, some might rely on that as evidence that quality rail can be built within a reasonably short time on only a half cent.

However, DCTA could not have opened its line that quickly without a onetime payment of $191 million from the State Highway 121 tolling agreement. That payment was over 60% of the total project cost of around $314 million. Without that massive immediate investment, DCTA would still be saving up for later construction. The opening of that rail line would still be a long way away.

“Long way-away rail” is not what people want. They want it now; so their own lives will be impacted.

Arlington has a potential east-west rail route from downtown Dallas that would ultimately extend to Fort Worth benefiting those to the west. Some of the potential stations in Arlington could be located near 360, near the ball parks and near UTA. It also has a potential north-south route that would connect from near 360 to the Trinity Railway Express and, by connection, to DFW and the rest of DART’s network of rail.

These station locations will bring tremendous economic development that will further help Arlington’s economy and increase local sales tax collections, thus offsetting some of the “extra” half penny that quicker, quality rail costs.

Rail is only one component of local transportation, but it is a very important one. Since cities originally voted to join DART in 1983, Dallas, Arlington and Fort Worth have nearly doubled in size, adding 3.2 million new residents. Over the next decade, we will add millions more.

The option of rail and the economic benefits it brings will only increase in value to member cities and further enhance our lives. To accomplish that in any relevant and meaningful time period, it will take the full penny.